Bogus stamps: Isö, Sweden
The Isö cinderellas are somewhat interesting phenomena in Scandinavian philately. Some sources (such as Wikipedia) mention Isö stamps as “local post stamps from Eastern Sweden (Gotland)”, but in reality these are complete bogus stamps.
The first Isö cinderellas I’m aware date back to early 1970’s and there seems to be a run of issues up to mid 1980’s. These issues have a normal range of popular topicals – olympics, trains, animals, jubilees etc.
Some Isö/Sverige bogus stamps from the 1970's
I assume these originate to UK or United States as the inscriptions on stamps are in English (instead of Swedish). The copies I have (and have seen) don’t specify currency in any way, but I assume Swedish öre is what they try to decipt. And without exception, the face values are nice, round figures (like 50,100,150 etc).
Isö (Sweden) bogus stamps - two popular topicals, cats and Rotary International on same sheet (1984)
In a sense it’s not suprising, that Isö “stamps” are most commonly found on mixed worldwide lots bought outside Scandinavian stamp markets. Single issues can be found rather easily from eBay and online stamp shops (specialised to topicals) – and with very varying information about the origins of the issues. I think the highest asking price I know is about 50US$ for a single Isö topical set… But for a traditional stamp collector these are without a doubt pure junk.
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Thanks a lot about that ! I finally found something about that weird stamp I have : A photo of a fish in a fisherman’s hand, with nothing on it but ISÖ and “postage 30″…I had real trouble to figure out what it was… Thank you very much
Do you want a scan of this stamp to publish on your website ?
Regards x
Hi Annaelle,
I’m happy you found this post useful. It seems you really found a “fishy” stamp
As for scan/image… Thanks for asking, but no thank you.
best,
-keijo-
Keijo thank you
best Dell
I even found on `www.Marktplaats.nl` ISÒ sverige stamps with cancellation Sveri d ge !!
Acarolus
Hi Keijo,
Do you collect these too???? Like sandunes????
If yes how do you know how many of these are out there in circulation???? Any particular catalogue for such bogus issues???
@Varadharajan.
Yes. I collect these too (as well as airmail labels and other postal cinderella too).
I’ve got approx. 64 page stock book full of various bogus stamps / issues from Isö, Somalia, Oman, Staffa, Eynhollow etc. These are very different from sand dunes (Ajman, Sharjah etc), as these have no official status (whereas most sheikh stamps were produced under a valid contract between official postal govt. & stamp printer).
As far as I know, most of these have no catalogs. UK collectors have some catalogs for the ‘local’ isles (Staffa, Eynhollow etc), but otherwise this is pretty unexplored territory I fear.
what about stamps from Nene railways, aaah?
@Fred… So far I don’t have any of those in my collections. I recall reading (either from SGM or Stamp Magazine) that they are some sorts of private courier stamps / labels.
What is the significance of the term/label “ISO”? Are these bogus stamps forged to get free postage service? If not, what is their purpose? Are they the predecessor to SPAM? Inquiring minds want to know!
Somalia is listed in scott catalogue.
@Rick… ISÖ is Swedish, and literally means “ice island”. It’s a small island on coast of Sweden.
These are 100% private bogus items. No postal value / needs behind these whatsoever.
@Slavko… Ahh, this is different Somalia (or actually there are at least two different bogus Somalias to display).
Here’s a sample of Somali Republic from my collections, and here’s a live eBay auction to another kind of Somalia bogus (all in all, if anyone wants an introduction to modern bogus, check out the other items from the seller.
)
How many different ‘bogus’ cinderellas are out there… Your guess is about as good as mine. I’d say that 50-100,000 different items just for these post-2000 ‘modern items’ might be in the proper range. The older items (from 1960’s up to 2000) are far more fever (maybe 10-20,000 different ones).
thanks, KK. wow, it is a tiny island!